Old Man

Old Man, also known as Napi, is a creator god and
trickster
figure in the mythology of the Blackfoot Indians of North America. He is
said to have created the world and all the creatures in it.

To make humans, Old Man fashioned figures out of clay and breathed life
into them. The first man he created was satisfied with the world, but the
first woman was not. She wanted to know

*
See
Names and Places
at the end of this volume for further information.

if people would ever die and if life would be the same forever as it was
now. The question surprised Old Man, who had not really thought about
whether humans would live forever.

To answer the question, Old Man threw a piece of wood into the river. If
the wood floated, he said, humans would die and come back to life after
four days. If it sank, they would die and never live again. The wood
floated, but the woman was still not satisfied. She decided to try the
test herself. However, instead of a piece of wood, she threw a stone into
the water. The stone sank, so Old Man decreed that death for humans would
last forever. Similar stories, in which a trickster throws an object into
water to determine whether humans will live forever, appear in the
mythologies of other Native American cultures.

Another story says that after the world was filled with people, Old Man
decided to experience life for himself. He lured a woman to a nest of
rattlesnakes, and she mated with one of them. When her husband found out,
he cut off her head. But the woman's headless body chased her two
children. They saved themselves by throwing a piece of magic moss on the
ground. A river formed, and the body drowned. One of the children was Old
Man, who continued to live on earth before he died and disappeared behind
the mountains.

trickster
mischievous figure appearing in various forms in the folktales and
mythology of many different peoples

The Blackfoot identify Old Man with the sun, which also disappears behind
the mountains every evening. Like the sun returning in the morning, Old
Man is also supposed to come back to earth one day.